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Tag Archives: Denmark

YESS – I’m finally returning to my second home – Denmark! It’s so strange to think that just about a year ago, I was leaving Denmark, wondering when the next time Iwould be back was. I was hoping to be able to make it this summer, and I actually did it! We had an awesome time just relaxing and chilling with people I met when I was here last year =D I’ve been so excited and I sound like an idiot just babbling on so I’m going to stop here – read on for more adventures and photos!

I know not that many people read this blog, but even the fact that some of you check it makes me “d’awww” a little on the inside, and I really do enjoy blogging, so I feel really bad about not updating! Last week hit me really hard – all of a sudden, a lot of deliverables were due for my classes, so it was a lot of stressing out. However, the last item from this first week was due earlier today, so now I feel a lot more relieved! I’m going to take this time to get together a lot of stuff I’ve meant to do all semester, such as update this blog with a slew of outdated blog posts, wash all my socks (it’s good the weather got really nice this past week because I’ve been having to wear my flip flops!), and hole punch a stack of 200 sheets of paper. Really. Oh, and pack for our epic spring break trip! We’re hitting 3 (possibly 4) countries in the span of two weeks, so I’m pretty stoked. But I’ll write about that in a later post =)

(That’s how they write dates in Europe – date before month; it really threw me off for a while). The previous post leaves off with my wallet crying after spending $100 on a taxi to get to DTU. I thought I couldn’t be late, so I had to take a taxi instead of public transportation. Turns out, it didn’t really matter if I was on time or not. Damn. Well, the Danes are very into being punctual, so I suppose it was good that I made an effort?

Anyways, I walked into the canteen (it’s the name of the cafeteria) in the middle of someone giving a lecture to all the international students. We had a couple of speakers doing the usual welcome-type of introductions, then had breakfast. We were separated into groups, each with a group leader. They gave us a tour around campus, and we had a chance to meet each other. They tried to seperate people from the same school and country, so it was a good mix of cultures.

Highlights from the campus tour: data bars and the building numbering system. Most buildings on campus have rooms called “data bars,” which are basically computers for the students to use. They’re really nice too and have all sorts of useful software – not like the slow clunky ones that we have in the VCC back at RPI. They’re open 24-7 and all you need is your student ID card to have access. Pretty sweet. Printing is FREE, which means… lots of rasterbations! The building numbering system at DTU is really sweet because the school is divided like a cartesian coordinate grid. Basically, the two main roads running through campus are perpendicular to each other, and where they intersect is the origin. From there, the buildings are divided into quadrants, and each quadrant has it’s own departments. For example, both of my majors (Mechanical Engineering and Design and Innovation) are in quadrant 4. Therefore, all the buildings I have classes in are next to each other and start with the number “4.” It’s so nerdy, but makes SO much sense!! I love it <3

Then, we had a scavenger hunt around campus, but it was cold so nobody was really into it. Then, we all met up back at the canteen and did competitions where we built structures to hold up beer cans. We placed second:

Group 5 with our beer tower!

Then, we had a delicious dinner, and went down to the student cellar bar. DTU has a lot of campus bars – can you believe that each department has their own Friday bar?

Wednesday, 27.01

After the luggage crisis mentioned in the post reference above, we boarded buses and left for a tour in Copenhagen! It was snowing so hard though, and everyone who wasn’t wearing boots got wet socks within the first hour of walking around. It was a pretty good tour though, we saw Den lille havfrue, which is the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen harbor. It’s got a cool history behind it, especially since they always replicas on display since people keep beheading her (and she’s also doing a tour in China this spring), but it’s also known as one of the biggest disappointments because it’s a really small statue. I won’t paraphrase it here, but DEFINITELY check out this wikipedia page for the history behind the statue (and all the time’s it’s been defaced – it’s hilarious)!

Stefano from Italy molesting the Little Mermaid.

We also saw some other sights, like the opera house and the queen’s house. They also showed us some more practical things, like the train station, where to get clip cards for transporation, and where to buy SIM cards. It was unbearably cold though, so we ended up splitting the group into those who wanted to get drunk and run around on a frozen lake, and those who wanted to go to a cafe. Sorry – I chose cafe. I was FREEEEEZING! Afterwards, we met all the other internationals at a vegetarian buffet, then headed over to the Student House. I got tired pretty early, so Joyce and I tried to head back, but the buses were all either cancelled or running late because of the snow. That’s what I’ve learned about the public transportation here – it’s pretty decent… until it snows. Then it’s all sorts of confused.

Thursday, 28.01

Thursday morning, we went to Lyngby Storcenter to get our CPR numbers and yellow cards. Health insurance is free in Denmark because the taxes are ridiculously high, so we’re getting the benefits =) Then, Joyce, Will, Phil, and Darcy wandered around Lyngby. We found an amazing kebab place! (Seriously, we have eaten sooo many kebabs!) Then, we went to Carlsberg museum for a tour! I was a little bummed that we didn’t really get to see the brewery or the beer making process, but it was still a cool tour.

Entrance to Carlsberg!

Ridiculous beer collection in the museum of every bottle they’ve ever made

All of us with the famous Carlsberg elephants!

Afterwards, we went and got groceries for the first time (for me anyways) and then had a delicious dinner at Joyce’s kitchen!

Friday, 29.01

We had lectures upon lectures all day – I don’t even really remember what we talked about! I think it was stuff like study habits, language courses, blah blah. Anyways, afterwards every group had to prepare a dish for our dinner feast! Our group was assigned to make pasta salad, so we went over to the containers and took over a kitchen. The Italians were disgusted by the idea of a pasta salad, so they actually saved about a third of the pasta we were supposed to cook and made pesto! I absolutely love Italians because they cook DELICIOUS Italian food!

Italians taking over the job of making pasta XD

While we were waiting, a bunch of us started playing card games. Len (from Belgium), Ann (from Singapore), Pawel (from Poland), and I got ahold of a strange Italian deck of cards. They’re really interesting because they don’t have numbers at all, just pictures of people with weapons. We devised our own game, where basically we all play cards and then we argue about which card would pwn the other one best. It was pretty sweet =D

Then, we headed over to the canteen to meet all the other groups for dinner. It was a lot of fun because all the Americans started teaching their groups American drinking games. At one point, Tom (from Wisconsin) was teaching his group flip cup. I mean seriously, where else is there 250 people eating in a cafeteria and all of a sudden, a table stands up and starts playing flip cup? Pretty hilarious! After dinner, we went to the student house, which is like a club on campus and partied the night away!

Tom standing on a table and shotgunning a beer in the middle of dinner!

Saturday, 30.01

Pretty much spent the day cleaning my room. Vacuumed soooooo many spiders off the ceiling x_x I met a lot of my kitchenmates that day too, so that was awesome!

Sunday 31.01

We wanted to explore Copenhagen, so Len, Ann, Aurélien (from France), and I met up at the Rådhuspladsen, which was basically the town square. Ann got lost on the bus, so we spent a good deal of time looking for her, and by the time we found her we were frozen solid, so we walked around for a bit then went to a nice cafe.

Salt supplies running out

Friday, 19 February 2010 09:42 JH News

Ongoing bad weather results in low levels of salt across the capital as council warns of disruption to travel

Copenhagen City Council has warned that salt supplies are running out in the face of persistently bad weather and with more snowfalls forecast. For the last two months, council workers have employed a range of machinery to help clear roads and bike lanes of snow and ice. Salt, which is spread on roads and pavements to melt the ice and snow, has also been crucial to keeping the city running, but now the battle is set to become harder as supplies run out.

Kim N. Sørensen, from the council’s Environmental and Technical Department, warned of disruptions to travel.

‘We’re doing everything we can, but without salt it is going to be a whole lot more slippery on roads, so we must be prepared to set off on journeys a little earlier and drive a bit more carefully,’ he said.

If the current forecasts of snowfalls materialise over the next few days there is a major risk that roads, pavements and bike lanes will not be cleared.

But it’s not just Copenhagen running out of salt; stocks are reportedly at an all-time low across much of northern Europe. At present, Copenhagen is waiting on a delivery from a ship which is currently making its way through the English Channel.

Sørensen said he expected the situation to improve when the temperatures get above freezing point and the snow stops.

Fact File| Copenhagen’s snow patrols:
– 100 large tractors fitted with snow removal equipment
– 13 salting trucks
– 21 medium sized tractors with scraping blades
– 35 small tractors
– Snowblowers used for first time in six years
– 6000 tonnes of salt spread on city roads so far this year, equating to 240 truck loads
– 70 council employees working in shifts and 44 private contractors

I really hope they don’t start using soy sauce to melt the snow like they do at RPI… seriously, that shit is GROSS. It’s brown, looks like soy sauce, smells like soy sauce, destroys my pants and shoes, and smells like a freaking Chinese restaurant everywhere I go. FUN FACT: in Denmark, soy sauce is called “Soya.” Weird, eh?

I’ve been watching a little bit of the Olympics, specifically, Christina and I watched SEAN WESCOTT PWN in snowboard cross! We were so obnoxious – sitting in my kitchen chanting “USA! USA! USA!”

In other news, last Wednesday, Len, Arne, and I went to Jægersborg Dyrehave (The Deer Garden)! Here’s some quick info that I paraphrased off wikipedia:

In 1669, Frederik III wanted to create an awesome deer park, so he planned to fence in a wood of beech trees and heard in hella nearby wild deer. However, he died in 1670, so it was never finished.

Frederik’s son, Christian V, spent time at the court of the Louis XIV in France and learned about parforce (hunting with dogs), so he increased the boundaries to 16 square kilometres and ordered inhabitants of Stokkerup, to tear down their houses. Today, Jægersborg Dyrehave houses about 2000 total deer and is maintained as a national park.

These deer are all on facebook; total photowhores

Arne (from Belgium) with some deer! You can see a feeding station behind him

Originally, the park was built so Christian V could go hunting, but now I *think* except for certain designated hunting days, hunting is banned and it’s more of a tourist location. There are still a ton of deer though, so the park has “feeding stations” so keep them fat and happy. Maybe it was just me, but I was a little bothered that deer in a national park are fed by humans. I guess it’s just we’ve always learned not to feed wild animals. I wonder if those deer would be able to survive if they were let loose into the wild outside where humans are living? Either way – kind of a cool concept for a park: rich king decides that he’s bored and wants to herd a shitton of deer into a park so he can hunt them – works for me, I suppose!

A larger feeding area, and a white deer!

It was FREEZING so afterwards we went to a little cafe within the park. The entranceway had SO MANY deer skulls – I really regret not getting a photo of it. The rest of the cafe was kind of cute, so it was a very strange contrast.

Jægersborg Dyrehave also has an amusement park inside it – it reminds me a little of Happy Hollow Park & Zoo. Do any of you from the Bay Area remember it? It was a zoo and amusement park all in one – in half the park, it was like a petting zoo with goats and other animals that you could feed, some really cool endangered animals, and the other half had animal-themed rides (remember the dragon ride from the parking lot to the park!?!?!) In case you can’t tell, I LOVED that place =)

I bet Jægersborg Dyrehave is GORGEOUS when the snow melts and the greenery starts coming in. We want to go back in the spring and do an afternoon picnic in the park, then go exploring some more. The part is 16 square km, so there’s a lot to explore! I really want to check out other areas in the park, such as Eremitagesletten. It’s an area in the North end of the park that also houses Eremitageslottet, the castle that was built during Christian VI’s reign.

I’m going to try and get some more updates up this week, along with some obligatory “catching-up” posts. There are more epic adventures to come, however! Check the sidebar to see my updated itinerary and planned trips!